Posts by LiamThompson

  • Cameron Aldrich DI Profile - Cab Added


    As quick and simple as I can explain it, 99% certain this is all correct (I think don't hold me to it) as I'm a keen modded Marshall enthusiast.


    • Mark Cameron is an amp tech who used to work in a guitar shop in the USA, the shop purchased a lot of amps from Jose Arrendondo's sister I believe after his death that were left in his shop or uncollected by rock stars after he'd modded them. Mark had a keen interest in the 80's hot rodded Marshall tone of his heros. To him this was like finding a goldmine of great information. He opened up these amps to see what magic was in there and traced/remembered/learned what made it all work. One amp in particular was a Marshall with the badge missing with Atomica sprayed on the front which sounded to him and everyone who heard it as a holy grail of EVH/80's Marshall tone. The rumours were that this was an amp Eddie was working on with Jose before his death that was never finished. Other rumours were it belonged to an LA band called Atomica. But obviously the EVH connection and story makes it all the better haha.


    • Jose Arredondo owned a shop called Arrco Electronics, which fixed electrical appliances like vancuum cleaners etc. He also modded and repaired amplifiers on the side.


    • A little known guy called Eddie Van Halen was friends with Jose and had him service (or mod depending on what you believe) his Marshalls. To help Jose out he "leaked" in a guitar magazine that Jose tweaked his amps.....next thing you know, every LA guitarist is down at Arrco asking for their Marshall's modded.
      Typical Jose mods included:
    • Pre amp tweaking for more gain and tighter more modern gain structure
    • Diode clipping via zenner diodes or transistors
    • Post phase invertor master volume
    • Valve fx loops
    • Insert loops before the cathode follower to be able to act as an extra gain stage if you inserted something like a cranked Lexicon Rack unit in there.
    • Negatve Feedback tweaks
    • Extra master volume control with zenner diode clipping volume positioned before the tone stack rather the typical Marshall post tone stack pre phase invertor


    • Mark Cameron then started to offer his own mods primarily based on Jose's work, giving guitarists the chance to obtain these tones again.


    • Now to your actual question - I'm pretty certain the "Aldrich Mod" is a Marshall JCM/JMP circuit with the pre amp tweaked for more gain and a 4th gain stage added by doing away with the cathode follower and using that side of the 2nd pre amp valve for the 4th gain stage. No cathode follower anymore in the circuit it is now a plate driven tone network. It also has a resonance control added. What I'm not 100% certain on is if it used any diode clipping. If the base for the mod is a non master volume Marshall Super Lead like I'm certain Doug's was the gain stages will need to be cascaded and a master volume added making it basically a JMP Master Volume/JCM 800 amp with tweaks. It is supposed to sound half way between a Mesa and a Marshall.
      There are also John Suhr and Martin Golub versions of the Aldrich mod, which I believe is slightly different, which Doug has used at different times. I think Golub's version uses and extra valve for the forth gain stage and keeps the cathode follower intact although I couldn't swear by this at all.

  • Harmonizer Capable of Van Halen Balance Sounds?

    I would start at the default settings, they are close but I'd say as I mentioned maybe go a little higher to around 90% maybe even 100% if that is what you like on the mix and maybe, maybe increase the amount of pitch detune and that should be pretty much there.


    I use these settings on my own bands sounds and I went through the same struggles at @evh5150it where in the end I decided to just go without the micro pitch as it was "sucking too much tone" even once I set the effect volume to match at unity with the rig when the detune was off.


    This also works great after the hyper chorus to simulate the 80's rack dynatronics tri-chorus rack into the Eventide for detuning on LA style 80's clean chorused sounds.


    Once you have the quad chromatic settings in as above give it a quick play through head phones or in stereo some way..........then turn the effect on and off and listen to the extra thickness and width it brings to your tone, makes it sound twice the size and its not just due to it being three guitars of the same performance on top of each other making it seem 6 db or whatever louder fooling you with 3 times the volume, the delay offsets and detune make it act as three separate guitars just like the original Eventide effect.

  • Harmonizer Capable of Van Halen Balance Sounds?

    @evh5150it Try this I'm home now so I can check my settings.


    I figured this out using the same principles as if I was using two rack Eventide Harmonizers in a Wet Dry Wet setup.


    You will need a newer firmware with the new delays to do this.


    In Stomp X select:

    • Quad Chromatic Delay
    • Mix: Start at 85% and adjust to taste between this and 100%, I find about 90% seems to get in the "Balance" area
    • Feedback: 0% (You only want the one repeat to simulate a guitar left and right)
    • Low Cut: To get closest to the Eventide you can leave it right off at 20.6 as there would have been no filtering on the unit, I personally go for 65 Hz to clear the bottom end a touch
    • High Cut: I'd aim for around 8000 Hz to simulate the early 80's bit rate/sample quality the original unit would have had
    • Delay 1 Ratio: 0.0%
    • Delay 2 Ratio: 0.0%
    • Delay 3 Ratio: 48.9% (You want a slight offset to help lessen phase cancellation especially if playing in mono. I noticed some stereo panned delays in the old Lexicon PCM units had an offset of 48.9% so I go with this value, when you listen to a ping pong delay in mono you can here it clears up phasing issues lots)
    • Delay 4 Time: I like 26ms therefore giving the other delay tap on the other side of the stereo field a timing of just below 13ms due to the 48.9% (26ms is a classic time offset from the dry signal used on old Roland SDE3000 units used by Joe Holmes in his wet dry wet rig to thicken tone, its was one of the preset timings as the unit only went up in increments and George Lynch in the studio was known to have a 0% feedback 26ms delay on his rhythms for the same reason according to Michael Wagener so if its good enough for them.....I have heard Eddie mention his is more like 6ms on the Eventide but also heard 10 and 12 and 13 in different interviews, go what you think sounds best, I think the higher the mix level the shorter you will have to bring the delay time down otherwise you will almost get a room sound happening which is not what you want here. Another tip if you like this by the end, try 56ms with 48.9% the other side on leads really adds some "air" around your notes, another 80's rack setup trick from back in the day)
    • Pitch 1: 0
    • Pitch 2: 0
    • Pitch 3: 0
    • Pitch 4: 0 (We want all of these at 0 as we don't want any semitone pitch adjustment we only want to use the detune later in the settings)
    • Volume 1: 0.0
    • Volume 2: 0.0
    • Volume 3: 10.0 (We want this on 10.0 full as we will control the overall detune effect in relation to the dry signal with the mix level)
    • Volume 4: 10.0 (Same here)
    • Panorama 1: 0%
    • Panorama 2: 0%
    • Panorama 3: -100% (This pans the 13ms or 48.9% delay to the left)
    • Panorama 4: +100% (This pans the 26ms or whatever you set the master delay to the left, this now gives you three voices, 1 left, 1 centre dry, one right)
    • Stereo: 100% (we need this at 100% to make sure the previous panorama settings work as we set them in stereo)
    • Modulation: 0.0 (A tip is to also try this at around 5 or 6 for a different type of stereo widening and modulation, but set the detune to 0.0 if you use this as you don't want both on the same time although there are no rules for as close as EVH as possible you want this off)
    • Pitch Detune: Start at +2.8% and try down to +2.2% and up to around +3.2%. I feel at around +2.8% to +3.0 max gives you about 9 cent sharp or flat either side of the stereo field to closest approximate the Balance or F.U.C.K type micro pitch. This is the parameter that will give you the sound you are looking for I'm sure.
    • The next settings, Formant Shift, Cross Feedback, Flutter Intensity and Flutter Rate leave turned off or on zero they aren't needed here.


    I think this will get you what you look for as it sounds you have exactly the same issues I had. I find this to do the micro pitch detune effect much better than the actual effect in the Kemper. You have control over the phase cancelation due to being able to set you own detune delay times like a real Eventide harmonizer, which you can't in the official Kemper effect. I was told it was already adjusted perfectly and that delay time adjustment would be pointless. I think you'll find Kemper were wrong when you try this.


    This way you can turn the effect up to 100% blend with lots of detune so much that it sounds horrible and way out of tune but it won't go thin and washy like the official effect even in mono, try it!


    P.S. forgot to mention obviously try this with either headphones on or stereo monitors for the full real effect.

  • Not possible with the KPA?

    Quote from schreckmusic

    I was talking to @SonicExporer about going down this route in PM about a week ago. Glad to hear it is working for you as that is the same setup I was looking at doing.

    To be honest I know the "correct" way to make direct profiles is with an actual cab connected but I've actually had better results making direct profiles using the Suhr as the load than my actual Marshall 1960 and some of my other cabs.


    It was worth every penny alone to just be able to make excellent direct profiles of any of my amps or any amps I borrow at any time of day or any place.....in silence if you wish.


    Playing your real amp at a gig or rehearsal and have you tone nailed......record those exact settings, be at home later maybe the wife or children are asleep? Dial those exact settings in with the Suhr as the load and profile away in silence. Then just add a great impulse. Obviously it also works as a top, top quality DI box if you use the speaker through therefore disabling the Suhr's load.

  • Not possible with the KPA?

    I can vouch for the Suhr Reactive Load, its amazing and its reactive impedance curve is modelled on 4X12 cab with greenbacks which would be right up @SonicExporer street being into early 80's hard rock. I twin it with my Modded JMP and some good greenback impulses and as much as I really like my Kemper and the profiles I've created of my gear with it, the real amp plus the load box just sounds better.

  • Harmonizer Capable of Van Halen Balance Sounds?

    @evh5150it When you say it loses a lot of signal do you mean though phase cancellation as you get the mix level on the Micro Pitch up past 30% and especially around 40% to 50% you loose some perceived volume, perhaps weight and thickness and mid range crunch and grind? I think this is the best way I can describe what i think you are talking about? Also when you are using the Micro Pitch are you listening in stereo or summed to mono?


    If I'm understanding this right I think I have a suggestion as I was suffering the exact same issue going for the exact same sound.

  • A different approach to Profiling

    I've been thinking of a way to do almost this same thing after a commercial profiler on here mentioned he does something similar to this to A B test direct profiles with a Torpedo Labs unit.


    Just trying to get this straight are you making a DIRECT amp profile first with a LOOP ready on STOMP A and parallel path engaged, which contains your AMT IR box. Then after the initial capture you are testing the DIRECT capture against the real amp before and after refining then further tweaking after saving using the same IR from the AMT? Don't know if I explained that very well.


    Just trying to work the path out in my head.

  • Dear Floyd Rose user...you better don´t watch that :)

    I've got several Floyd rose equipped guitars including Jackson Soloists, 2 EVH USA's and a Musicman Axis.


    There is a quite a difference to me between my floating Floyd's and all the "EVH" based guitars that sit flush on the body with no rear route. I also use big 42mm brass blocks, both make quite a significant difference.
    Not sure I'd buy another Floyd equipped guitar with a rear route, what little functionality I lose I gain back in tone and sustain with no route push down only. I do miss subtle bar vibrato, flutters/gargles and crazy squealing pulled up in pitch harmonics ala Dimebag, but I still have some full routes for that when I want to.


    Plenty of amazing tone with or without either way but I do prefer the tone of a hard tail and flush mount Floyd.

  • cab only profiling

    Really interesting stuff.


    As we all know the cab portion does inherit some of the character of the dialed in tone for example the cab portion in a merged profile will be brighter if the amp was dialed in brighter than an amp dialed in with less treble and presence even though the cab and mic setup will be identical.


    I'm thinking could this be done through a second kemper for a super flat power amp if you turned off all stomps stack and effects sections?